Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

Sad as it may seem, you can’t buy yourself fit. You can’t buy yourself thin. No matter how much money you spend on yoga mats and fitness balls, you will stay at the same level of fitness if you don’t use them. No matter how much money you spend on health food, you will stay at the same weight if you eat too much.

Sadder still, you can’t learn yourself fit and you can’t learn yourself thin. No matter how many gyms you join or personal trainers you hire, you will stay at the same level of fitness if you don’t exercise every day. No matter how many diet books or magazines you buy, you will stay at the same weight if you don’t alter your eating habits. No matter how many nutrition classes you take… I think you get the point.

The only way to get fit is to exercise. The only way to get thin is to monitor your eating. There is just no other way around the physics of physiology. No matter how much money you have, you are still bound by the laws of physics.

I know this fact, yet I still find myself trying to buy fitness. I’m not talking about those times when I find myself bored with my workout routine and am looking for something to spice it up. I’m talking about those times when I find myself looking in a store for a new fitness gizmo when I have a home full of interesting ones that I have barely used.

I find the same phenomena with diet magazines and books. My eye is drawn to them, even though I know what I need to do to lose weight. There is no magic list of foods that is going to make me thin. When I follow the Weight Watchers program, I lose weight. End of story. There is no need for magazines and diet books. All I need to do is eat healthy and the weight will come off. Yet, I find myself perusing their pages. If I could just buy myself thin, life would be so much easier.

There was a time in my life when we had lots of money and I weighed 235 pounds. I remember standing in the mall with a purse full of money and not a piece of clothing that fit me. Even Lane Bryant let me down. I was desperate for a nice outfit for a party and I had so much money that I could have bought hundreds of outfits. Nothing fit me.

As pathetic as that sounds, that point in my life wasn’t rock bottom. I didn’t hit rock bottom until Saturday of the Body For Life program. It was the “eat whatever you want” day. My muscles were throbbing and sore from the physical activity of the previous week. I was obsessed over the caramel popcorn that had been my prize for suffering through the first week. It started a binge that didn’t end for weeks. It started a binge that didn’t end until I walked into my first Weight Watchers meeting.

Ironically, walking into Weight Watchers was another attempt to buy thinness, but it was different this time because I was determined and willing to do whatever I had to do to lose the weight. I didn’t care what everyone else thought. Whatever Weight Watchers had, I had seen it work on two other people in my life, so whatever they told me to do, I was going to do. No questions asked. That is what changed my life. The willingness to do whatever was required.